Sunday, July 4, 2010

Exercising restraint

Allie adores bananas, and usually we're very generous about sharing the ones we eat with her. But this morning Julie (who's the most generous of us all) left a banana out on the kitchen counter, in preparation for packing it for a snack to take to work.

Of course, Allie saw the banana. While Julie was in her room and I was in the kitchen, our golden girl spied the coveted fruit, looked at me expectantly, and offered a very polite sit. "No can do, girl," I told her. "Go to Julie."

"I'm taking it to work," called Julie, who had overheard me. "She can't have it this time."

Allie continued to sit and continued to gaze at the banana. I got diverted by something else and went into the dining room.

When I came back, Allie had broken her sit but was still looking at the banana. But amazingly, this dog--who generally will countersurf to retrieve plastic containers and knives from the kitchen sink, much less anything edible--made absolutely no attempt to reach up to the counter to grab the fruit that had literally prompted her to drool.

Wow. What a good girl.

6 comments:

Roxanne @ Champion of My Heart said...

Wow. Good girl, Allie.

When I have to leave food sitting out while I do one thing or another, I'm forever telling Ginko, "Don't you eat my lunch." And, he usually doesn't.

Today, it was a buffalo hot dog on the counter, while I went to help Tom with something before lunch.

Susan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Susan said...

Wow. That is impressive.

Shauna (Fido & Wino | R.O.A.R. Squad) said...

I'll echo Susan- that is impressive!

KathyF said...

I bet it's because she didn't want to make Julie feel bad by taking her banana.

Long story, but I once told Bailey that a toy she'd picked up was Leah's, then said "ask Leah if you can have that toy". She disappeared. Five minutes later, Leah called from downstairs, "Bailey's staring at me and she won't stop!"

I love dogs.

Susan said...

Me too, Kathy -- I especially love that they seem to understand so much more than we think they do.